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I'm going to a different format soon. I've decided to customize WordPress and just maintain a blog on my main page, with a couple of other pages for links, my bio, that sort of thing. Then again, I might change my mind. I've been known to do that.
I received two requests from Conference for Otherworld, but the reactions of the agent and editor were what I find even more encouraging. They both said it sounded different. Apparently not so different they didn't want a look at it. So, here I go.
Making the chapters shine has been an experience for me. Each time I write something I learn something about my own process. Even as I watch what I do, I find the process is still evolving, a constant becoming. I see so many people with recommendations of how to work this way of plotting, or work that way of revising, and do this to get realistic characters--and it makes me wonder if I have any tricks I could discover for myself. Not that they'd be original, I'm pretty certain anything that I will do has been done before in the process sense. As I come down the line to the revision of Otherworld, hoping to put it to bed soon and go on to Midnight At The Mystic Cafe, I'm wondering if maybe I need a box of tricks, because each novel I've written so far has its own persona and way of coming into being. I'll keep everyone posted as to what I'm doing and how I'm doing it.
Have a day full of lovefurypassionenergy,
Sandra
So I've been waiting to hear back from two editors and an agent on whether they will buy my book, or represent my books. Waiting is tough, but it's part of the business.
While waiting, one of the houses I had thought might be an alternative place to try to sell my manuscript I call Spellbinder published a book with that exact title. Not the same plot. However, as most publishing companies will not allow two books with the same title in their catalogue, I find that it makes me feel less likely to get a favorable response from this company.
So, what could be my alternate title for Spellbinder? Any ideas?
Thanks in advance,
Sandra
Today I was sitting down, taking a break, and I had the TV on. Not that unusual, but I'm normally on the Science Channel, or G4. Today I was on Fox and the broadcast was interrupted for the motorcade taking President Gerald R. Ford to the Ford Museum for his last memorial.
This isn't something that happens every day, nor does it happen every year. For some reason, though, whenever a president is laid to rest my mind sees another funeral from my youth.
I was four years old when John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot and killed. I remember leaving my house to go down the street to Janie Martin's house to ask her mom if her TV showed something else. No, she told me, it was the same thing. Sadly I went home, knowing that I wanted to watch Sherrif John and was instead having to watch this thing I didn't understand.
I did understand one thing, though. John John's salute. I didn't really get the concept of death completely, and this was abstract for me at four years old anyway. The president wasn't the person who kissed my boo-boos or made me clean my room. The president didn't leave presents for me under the Christmas tree or color Easter eggs I would find. But the image of a little boy, solemn faced, offering a salute to the coffin made me uncomfortable. I guess I knew somewhere he was saying goodbye to one of his parents, because his mother was there beside him but not his father. The knowledge that this could happen to me hung there like, I don't know, the ghost of Christmas yet to come, skeletal as an idea yet fleshed out with the salute of a boy not too much older than I.
I have always admired Gerald R. Ford, in a passive sort of way, I think. He had a very rough time of things, especially after Nixon resigned. Ford pardoned him, stopping any investigations and legal proceedings. I know many people feel this was all worked out with Nixon before. I'm not going to conjecture that here. I just know that it was a very hard to come into a job where the big boss just quit because of a scandal that had never shaken the position before, or since. He had to make us trust him, and he had to make us believe that we could elect another president with confidence. The opinion was split on whether the pardon was appropriate or not, but in the end people made a choice, the nation went on, and the stigma of Watergate faded from a National scandal bordering on past-time to a history lesson.
Goodbye Gerry. You kept it together for us when we were divided. Rest in peace.
Sincerely,
Sandra
Our house is quite diverse. People end up everywhere on Christmas. My Wonderful Husband™ and I go to my folks, my best friend and her SO go to her mother's, and my stepson is usually with his mom's side of the family. So, tonight is the night we get together as a house and open presents.
Though this was the first time in my life I had no time to get a tree, we had a great time. The house was decked out with lights everywhere, and candles. There were presents aplenty for everyone, the kids making out like bandits. I got plenty of things to spend--money, gift cards. There was an embarrassment of candy. And I know I'm old when I find ibuprofin in my stocking.
Now I'm exhausted, but I have a 9 year old here who wants to learn to use my Nintendo Wii (or, to say it with more fun, my Nintendo WHEEEEEEE!).
I hope everyone's holidays are as bright as mine was tonight.
Well, it's been a strange year. I had major surgery, my husband's best friend had a lung collapse, my only living grandparent died on my birthday, I revised the bylaws for Los Angeles Romance Authors, my time for my chat community took a nose-dive, and so did the attendance for said chat community, my best friend acquired a stepdaughter who has become like a little sister, and, if you can believe it, I was elected president of Los Angeles Romance Authors for 2007.
Yet, today is taken up with something else all together. We have an old man in the house. His name is Sterling, and he's a Norwegian Forest cat. That means he looks rather like Sylvester from the cartoons.
He's a grudgemudgeon. When I met him at a friend's house he bit me, and I still have the scars to this day. He's older and still as irrascible as ever.
When we first got him, he was so tough, so much the silent and mean kitty. But we caught him gathering and playing with fallen camelia flowers from the neighbor's bushes. He would spin them like tops. When seen doing this, he'd immediately break off with a surly expression. Soon, after we praised him for how beautiful the flowers were, other cats were trying to find something similar to gift us.
He tried to run away when we first brought him from our friend's house. He'd been abandoned when his first family moved, and she couldn't keep him. We kept him inside the normal two weeks, then let him out. We didn't see him for about 2 1/2 days. When he came back, he had crawled. His back feet were quite swollen, and we conjectured he'd been tossed by a car. We made him comfortable, fed and watered him, and watched to see what would happen. We expected he'd be cranky and unaccepting of the care we gave. Instead, he was grateful.
He doesn't like car rides, and he hates going to the vet. But Sterling always thanks us after vet visits. Even the one today that stressed him out so much he had begun to twitch in the vet's office.
So, why am I writing about my cat and not any of the other things happening in my life? Because Sterling reminds me that physical complaints don't have to interfere with quality of life if I don't want them to. He's got cataracts. His back is nearly fused with arthritis, making it impossible to do the usual cleaning of his fur. He has some form of skin issue around his mouth, making it hard to eat. He weighs very little--less than 5 lbs.--when he formerly weighed about 8 lbs. He can't jump up, and can hardly use his back legs to scale something, all of his strength being in his front legs. We believe he is hard of hearing. The vet told us today that he has little to no kidney function left.
Yet, he not only drinks and eat on his own, he demands to be fed, begs when we eat something, asks to be petted, moves from piece of sun on the floor to piece of sun on the floor (I swear he has the spots memorized), asks out, and curls up on the floor furnace (yes, I know, a floor furnace--gotta get a wall furnace next year, really!) when it's on. He still interacts with other cats, as well as with us. With the exception of going over the fence to hang out with our curmudgeon of a neighbor (birds of a feather, as they say), and collecting flowers, he's basically still doing everything he ever did, physical condition notwithstanding.
How many times do I make excuses for not doing something that is related to not feeling well? Do I let myself believe I'm not able to keep up with something or another because I'm buying my own BS? Nora Roberts said we make stuff up, and we as writers are prone to believe our own excuses.
I don't make New Year's resolutions, because I actually think that's a stressful way to start the New Year and it sets me up for feeling like a failure if I don't follow through because life had other plans. But this year, I think I'm going to live like Sterling--in spite of the pain, the illness, the tweaked muscles, the general stress of life. All the energy I have will go out to the things I love.
Have a happy holiday season.
Ciao,
Sandra
So I'm considering a move. This blog doesn't get a lot of traffic or comments, even when I post with any regularity. And Blogger itself doesn't have much of a scene. I know that editors and agents will look to see if I can build a community myself, but frankly if there isn't a large community-maker already, it's hard to make a "scene" about your work.
I have a MySpace page. I have no blog on it, and only four friends so far, one of them is Tom. I am considering using MySpace as my blog -and- my web presence for the time being.
I have also considered just using it for networking and buzzing my work. I figure getting people interested in the book, even before it is published, would help anyone considering my work at all.
Problem is, MySpace is happening now, but will it be happening in five years? I'd love to say yes, but no one really knows.
That's why part of me wants to only use MySpace for networking and buzzing books--the way bands and actresses and artists buzz their work. This blog wouldn't go away, it just might become more about my ups and downs as a writer. Still, two blogs, twice the time . . . so much to decide.
Ciao for now,
Sandra
Lana Long just won't leave me alone today. I began National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short. If I say it out loud, it freaks my Wonderful Husband™ because it sounds like a bizarre rare disease) and I took on a story I have had in the back of my mind.
I've been working on this story for a few months, but now the heroine--Lana, who is an ex-hooker--wants me to write about her to the exclusion of anything else in my life.
Now, I don't mean she wants me to finish her story before I write about anything else. I mean, she doesn't want me to take a break for lunch.
Today I actually had some office work for LARA, and I'll have some tomorrow. My writing time is limited if not down to zero for the next two days. But she's pushing me to do the writing anyway. Can I do it? Will she let me eat? Stay tuned and see if I shoot myself before I make 50,000 words on my little widget to the right.
Don't Stop Writing,
Sandra
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